Zachary Roth | October 15, 2009, 3:52PM

Lately, we've been documenting the exodus of companies from the Chamber of Commerce over its opposition to serious efforts to address global warming.

But as the Senate gets set to take up climate change legislation, already passed by the House, there's a larger question behind the Chamber's woes: What's motivating energy-sector companies on both sides of the issue, and how are their positions affecting the debate on Capitol Hill?

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Topics: ACCCE, Exelon, GE, Global Warming, Lobbyists, Oil, PG&E

Al Gore

Apple Is Latest To Quit Chamber Over Climate Change

Zachary Roth | October 5, 2009, 6:01PM

The exodus continues...

Apple has become the latest big-name company to defect from the Chamber of Commerce, thanks to the group's uncompromising opposition to serious efforts to stop global warming.

In a letter to the Chamber released today, Apple CEO Catherine Novelli wrote that her company "strongly object[s] to the Chamber's recent comments opposing the EPA's effort to limit greenhouse gases."

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Topics: Al Gore, Chamber of Commerce, GE, Global Warming, Nike

Global Warming

Members Revolt Over Chamber's "Extreme" Stance On Global Warming

Zachary Roth | October 2, 2009, 2:17PM

As the Senate gets set to take up climate change legislation, one of the key opponents of serious efforts to stop global warming may find its clout on the issue badly weakened.

That's because in recent weeks, several high-profile members of the Chamber of Commerce have gone public over their disagreement with the group's position, with some leaving the Chamber altogether over the issue.

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Topics: Chamber of Commerce, GE, Global Warming, Henry Waxman

GE

CNBC Under Corporate Pressure To Stop Bashing Obama?

Moe Tkacik | April 16, 2009, 8:48PM

Earlier this month Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein gave a speech condemning Wall Street's systemic greed and sloppiness, prompting pundits to wonder if Wall Street was finally starting to "get it." Could Wall Street's preeminent mouthpiece CNBC be starting to "get it" as well?

A unnamed source at the network told this morning's New York Post that NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker and Jeff Immelt, CEO of parent company GE, had recently convened a dinner with the network's top brass and some of its high-profile reporters to discuss whether the network that launched a thousand search engine queries into the meaning of teabag should start distancing itself from the "grassroots" war it started with the Obama administration two months ago. Indeed, yesterday the network mentioned the T-word by far the fewest times of any of the major cable news networks. The Post source, an anonymous "insider," said dispatches from the dinner had been filtering down to reporters, who were concerned about being "muzzled by GE."

Quoting the Post ...

"It was an intensive, three-hour dinner at 30 Rock which Zucker himself was behind," a source familiar with the powwow told us. "There was a long discussion about whether CNBC has become too conservative and is beating up on Obama too much. There's great concern that CNBC is now the anti-Obama network. The whole meeting was really kind of creepy."

Media bias at CNBC has been a hot topic since CNBC anchor Rick Santelli, a former options trader who reports on the arcana driving interest rates and futures from the pit of the Chicago Board of Trade, touched off the tea party madness when he used one of his live spots in February to deliver an impassioned and incoherent speech predicting the "collectivist" path pursued by the Obama mortgage modification bill would impoverish the country such that Americans, like Cubans, would soon be driving "54 Chevys" (which he added was "maybe the last great car to come out of Detroit.")

Santelli's rant, in turn, fueled a campaign led by The Daily Show host Jon Stewart to hold the network "accountable," a sentiment echoed in an online petition signed by dozens of prominent economists exhorting network execs to Fix CNBC:

Americans need CNBC to do strong, watchdog journalism - asking tough questions to Wall Street, debunking lies, and reporting the truth. Instead, CNBC has done PR for Wall Street. You've been so obsessed with getting "access" to failed CEOs that you willfully passed on misinformation to the public for years, helping to get us into the economic crisis we face today.

So are Zucker and Immelt really coming down on CNBC to lighten up on Obama? Not so, says a CNBC staffer who attended the dinner...